BOOK XVI. xciii. 247-xcv. 250 



plant is fcrtile and the female barren, except that 

 even a fcrtile plant sometimes does not bear. 



XCIV. Mistletoe berries can be used for making Mistietoe 

 bird-lime, if gathered at harvest time while unripe ; 

 for if the rainy season has begun, although they get 

 bigger in size they lose in viscosity. They are then 

 dried and when quite dry pounded and stored in 

 water, and in about twelve days they turn rotten — 

 and this is the sole case of a thing that becomes 

 attractive by rotting. Then after having been again 

 poundcd up they are put in running water and there 

 lose their skins and become viscous in their inner 

 flesh, This substance after being kneaded with oil 

 is bird-Hme, used for entangling birds' wings by 

 contact with it when one wants to snare them. 



XCV. While on this subject we also must not omit Worshipo/ 

 the respect shown to this plant by the Gallic provinces. oaui. 

 The Druids — that is what they call their magicians — 

 hold notliing more sacred than mistletoe and a tree 

 on which it is growing, provided it is a hard-oak. 

 Groves of hard-oaks are chosen even for their own 

 sake, and the magicians perform no rites without 

 using the foHage of those trees, so that it may be 

 supposed that it is from this custom that they get 

 their name oi" Druids, from the Greek word mean- 

 ing ' oak ' ; but further, anything growing on oak- 

 trees they think to have been sent down from hcaven, 

 and to be a sign that the particular tree has been 

 chosen by God himself. Mistletoe is, however, 

 rather seldom found on a hard-oak, and .when it is 

 discovered it is gathered with great ceremony, and 

 particularly on the sixth day of the moon (which 

 for these tribes constitutes the beginning of the 

 raonths and the years) and after everj' thirty years of 



549 



